The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for processing value documents.
From DE 2760269 C2 an apparatus is known for automatically sorting value documents, which has an input pocket for receiving the value documents, a singling device, a transport system, a checking device arranged along the transport system and at least one deposit device. The value documents are sorted according to the results of the checking device, wherein indeterminable reject value documents are deposited or placed down in a temporary reservoir. From the check results of the reject value documents, a protocol is drawn up of the reject value documents. The protocol is used at a manual reworking station to manually evaluate and check the reject value documents removed from the temporary reservoir. The result of the manual check can be used to complete the sorting results. However, the known apparatus has the disadvantage that many reject value documents require a great effort of manual reworking at the manual reworking station.
To reduce the manual reworking, DE 10030221 A1 suggests to reduce the number of reject value documents to be manually reworked by repeating the check of the reject value documents. For this purpose, for example an automatic return of the reject value documents is provided to the input pocket of the apparatus, from which the reject value documents are singled again to carry out a further check by means of the same apparatus. The reduction of the number of reject value documents results, since any disturbances or faulty operating conditions present at the time of a first check of the value documents, e.g. skew or double removal of the value documents, usually no longer occur at the time of a second check of the reject value documents. The correct checking and assignment of the reject value documents is thus possible upon the second check (also referred to as rerun) in many cases.
It is a disadvantage, however, that separation cards are required for separating the reject value documents of different input stacks or settlement units, e.g. header cards and/or trailer cards, between which the reject value documents are deposited on the same stack. Using the information on the respective separation card, the respective reject value documents, after their rerun, are re-assigned to the original input packet to which the reject value documents belong, i.e. in which they were originally included. However, the use of separation cards represents an additional effort. Moreover, when separation cards are used, there is a risk with regard to a possibly incorrect assignment of reject value documents to the respective input stack/to the respective settlement unit, to which the reject value documents belong, e.g. in the case of a transport disturbance, in which the order of reject value documents and separation cards can get mixed up.